Faculty Collaboration Database

Profiles of emotion regulation: Understanding regulatory patterns and the implications for posttraumatic stress. Cogn Emot 2017 Apr;31(3):598-606

Date

01/09/2016

Pubmed ID

26743908

DOI

10.1080/02699931.2015.1126555

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-84953721901 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   37 Citations

Abstract

Trauma survivors often experience posttraumatic stress (PTS) and report concurrent difficulties with emotion regulation (ER). Although individuals typically use multiple regulatory strategies to manage emotion, no studies yet examine the influence of a constellation of strategies on PTS in a community sample. We assessed six ER strategies and investigated whether specific profiles of ER (i.e. the typical pattern of regulation, determined by how often each strategy is used) were related to PTS. A hierarchical cluster analysis indicated that four distinct profiles were present: Adaptive Regulation, Active Regulation, Detached Regulation, and Maladaptive Regulation. Further analyses revealed that an individual's profile was not related to frequency of past trauma, but had the power to differentiate symptom severity for overall PTS and each symptom cluster of posttraumatic stress disorder. These findings highlight how profiles characterising multiple regulatory strategies offer a more complete understanding of the ways ER can account for PTS.

Author List

Chesney SA, Gordon NS

Author

Nakia Gordon BS,MA,PhD Assistant Professor in the Psychology department at Marquette University

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adaptation, Psychological
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Emotions
Female
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
Survivors
Young Adult